Gaming & Culture —

GDC: Epic shows off Gears of War 2 improvements

Epic showcased a variety of new Unreal Engine 3 features with a backdrop of …

During Microsoft's keynote speech earlier this morning, there was more news than just the extension of the XNA platform and the beginning of Zune gaming. Amidst the rumors of a Microsoft takeover of Epic, the president of Epic Games, Dr. Michael Capp, and technical director Tim Sweeney came on stage to showcase some of the new technologies of the ever-evolving Unreal Engine 3.

Using Gears of War as a testing ground, Sweeney took the crowd through some impressive visuals that the engine can now produce, all the while coyly hinting that these types of improvements could be coming to gamers in the form of Gears of War 2. Marcus Phoenix and a variety of cut scenes were taken from the original title and used to demonstrate the improvements to the engine.

Sweeney showcased the ability of the engine to display large numbers of characters by generating a high-density horde of 100+ locusts on the screen at once. The stream flowed through the levels without a hitch in the framerate. As Sweeney pointed out, this was a huge improvement over the five- or six-character mobs from the original Gears of War. Perhaps most impressive was the new soft-body physics engine that was produced in cooperation with Ageia. This was shown in a vicious battle between Marcus and an oddly disturbing "meat cube," which rolled and reacted to Marcus' actions convincingly.

Other notable improvements include an advanced lighting engine, which offered a significant amount of additional shadowing and layering techniques, improved liquid dynamics for better water interaction, and destructable environments.

Now that Gears of War 2 has been officially announced, it's quite clear that Epic has a number of new tools in the toolkit to work with for the new title. The company ended its showing by reaffirming its dedication to Microsoft platforms.